it's a homophone, dammit.

December 31, 2009

Run a marathonIt's inexcusable that I haven't done this yet. It's been a goal for years. I've run just under 20 miles numerous times. I can do it. I want to do it. I need to do it. I don't know what's holding me back.

Downieville ClassicHarper did this race last year and it looked fantastic. And I don't just say that because she podiumed. I got really into mountain biking in 2009, and upgraded the shit components on my Felt Virtue 3 (all by my lonesome self) to a respectable SRAM x-9 gruppo and cassette, put in a ceramic bottom bracket and Truvativ crankset, crank brothers eggbeater mallets, and tricked it out with more bling than a Zale's counter. Although I still need to improve my technical skills, I think I'm ready for D'ville, at least in the beginner class. Either that or I'll break my ass.

Climb a 14erI loved climbing Whitney last year and Harper is always telling me how summiting Shasta was one of the highlights of her life. I'm eager to summit another 14,000-foot peak. It has to be something non-technical, but hey, there are plenty of those to choose from.

::::::::::happier

International travelEvery year, I try to make sure I leave the country at least once. I don't always make it. Last year, it was a single, working trip to Toronto. In 2010 I'll go for vacation, ideally to a place where they speak a different language.

::::::::::more productive

WIRED featuresI'm mostly a front of the book writer. I had exactly one story in the feature well for Wired in 2009, which was down from 2008, when I had three (one was long-form, the other two were art-driven photo-essays). I want to triple my 2009 output next year and get back to three stories in the well--which means I need to be writing more long-form pitches. (Hi, Jason!) Moreover, I wrote a cover story for WIRED UK in 2009 and shared the February cover story for WIRED with Erin Biba and Pat DiJusto. As an aspirational goal I'd like to have two cover stories again in 2010 (they don't have to be for Wired.)

Pitch Outside Comfort ZoneNearly every story I wrote in 2009 fell into one of two categories: fitness or technology. Often the stories were at the intersection of the two. While those certainly are passions of mine, they don't represent the sum total of my interests. I'd like to start writing about more and varied subjects professionally, just as I often do personally.

iPhone AppI have an idea for a fantastic niche iPhone & Web app. There's been a market hole for years in a certain area that I can't believe still remains unfilled. I know it won't for much longer. My iPhone Development book, that I've owned for a year or so, still remains unopened. It's time to read it and get to building. Or at least to raise enough money to hire someone to build it. If I don't build it, somebody else eventually will.

10 Year PlanThe publishing industry is completely up in the air. I love my job. It's my dream job. If you had asked me, at almost any point in the last ten years, what I'd do if I could have any job in the world, I would have told you it was to be a contributing editor at a magazine, ideally Wired. That's where I am today. But who knows what tomorrow will bring? Wired is better positioned than any other title I know of to take on the challenges that the next decade will present for the publishing industry. (You've likely seen the demos by Sports Illustrated and Bonnier that show their vision of the future of magazines on tablet devices. I've also seen Wired's. I can't say very much about it, but I will say that I think it's going to blow you away when you do see it, and that I expect it will be a reality quite soon.) I'm certain Wired will be around as we approach 2020. But any writer who isn't already thinking about alternative ways to earn a living (rather than the traditional method of being paid by a magazine publisher, newspaper publisher, book publisher, or even blog publisher) is a fool.

::::::::::comfortable

Live Here NowWe have a fantastic apartment. It's a top floor unit with views of the Bay and Golden Gate Park, an extra bedroom that I can use as an office, and windows everywhere. We love it. But we're also hoping to buy. This may mean moving out of SF and into a surrounding 'burb. (Hopefully not.) Or it may mean moving to a different neighborhood and less-awesome space. Or it may even mean buying a vacation home that we rent out part time, just to build equity. I don't know that we'll make a move in 2010, but I want to have a concrete strategy to go from renter to owner.

::::::::::not drinking too much

The Booze: Under control
I drink too much. It's not causing any problems, but it's not healthy. My wife, my parents, and my colleagues (in journalism, a profession that doesn't exactly frown upon drinking) have all expressed growing alarm with my prodigious alcohol intake. I can't keep drinking booze like it's water. Having said that, I'm off to lunch at Magnolia where they just tapped a new keg of Oysterhead Stout that I've been waiting for since the previous batch ran out last winter. Cheers. Happy New Year.

December 30, 2009

Last year, I posted my annual list of resolutions online. For me, this annual tradition is pretty much an exercise in public shaming. I try to force myself to keep my resolutions by making them public. Often, my real goal isn't the resolution itself, but simply to attempt to keep the resolution. And if you think of things in that light, it's better to shoot for the moon. Last year, I posted a particularly ambitious set. So how did I do? Erm. Kind of lousy. Results below.

Fitness:
1. Complete a marathon
I'd like to do this in less than 3.5 hours. But that's an aspiration more than a goal. What I'm going to accomplish is to run 26.2 miles.

Nope! Not only did I not complete one, I didn't even try. The closest I came was the Double Dipsea, which is a fun (and exhausting) race from Stinson Beach to Mill Valley and back again over Mt. Tam. But at 14 miles, it's hardly a marathon. I did run some long distance training runs last year, hitting the 19 mile mark twice. But 2009 turned into a year of enjoying the outdoors and fitness rather than competing in events (see the next entry). I probably logged more miles running in '09 than I did in '08, but not competitively. I uncharacteristically left my GPS at home, and just ran for fun. I think, as a result, I love running now more than I did a year ago. But I'm still longing to check that 26.2 miler off my list.

2. Complete a Half-Ironman in less than 5.5 hours This year, I finished my first half in 5:34. I think I can get it under five and a half hours simply by doing better in the transitions. I took a lot of time transitioning at Vineman, because it was my first time out and I more or less used them as breaks. But one area where I can certainly shave some time this year at Wildflower is my swim. I'm a crummy swimmer. Which leads me to:

Nope! I didn't even come close to this. In fact, the only Half-Ironman I registered for last year was Wildflower, and I chickened out at the last minute and competed in the Olympic distance instead. I essentially spent all of 2008 competing in triathlons (I did 5 that year in all, including two Alcatraz triathlons, and a Half-Ironman). I was burned out. I was tired of competing. I was tired of training nearly every day in pursuit of personal records. I needed a break. I'm signed up for the Auburn Triathlon in 2010, but given its reputation as "the world's toughest half" I doubt I'll finish in less than 5.5. And you know what? I don't really care.

3. Swim lessonsI suck at swimming. While I was a strong and frequent swimmer growing up (I even worked as a lifeguard at Boy Scout camp and the YMCA) I was never on a team. And because I was never on a team, I never learned good form. And because I never learned good form, I'm slow. You know the difference between me and Michael Phelps? Too many to count. But the difference between me and the guy who finishes five to ten minutes ahead of me on a 1.5 mile swim? It's not fitness; it's form. I'm going to suck it up and take some swim lessons this Winter, even if they bore the shit out of me.

Done. Although just one. But that single lesson did more to improve my form than all my other practice in the previous three years combined. I need more.

4. First ElvisI'm going to be the first person dressed as Elvis to cross the finish line at this year's Bay to Breakers. Hunka, hunka.

Check! This was one of the best things I've ever done. Harper waited for me at the end to verify that I was the first E across the line, but it turned out that she didn't need to: all along the way I heard over and over, "hey, it's the first Elvis!" Hauling ass in an Elvis costume was a phenomenal feeling. While I was far from being a race leader, I was certainly one of the leading people in costume. It's a rush, and I felt a little bit like I was giving back to the city I love. But one major lesson learned: Elvis costumes are hot. I felt like I was going to pass out by about mile 5 from the heat inside that suit. This year, I may try to ventilate it.

Professional:1. Three Blog Posts Per MonthWhat's this doing under professional? One thing I've always said I love about blogging is that as a professional writer, my blog is my freedom. It's the place where I get to say whatever I want, however I want, unfiltered by editors, factcheckers, spellcheckers, or common sense. But it's also a place where I refine story ideas, where I try out new concepts, and organize my thoughts. It's a valuable professional tool. In 2008, I almost quit blogging. It was an accident, I tumbled too much instead. I don't know about you, but I've grown tired of Tumblr. Yeah, it's a meme crucible. But it's also a circle jerk, and it's too focused on hipsterism. I rarely find anything interesting there anymore that isn't actual old school, long form, blogging. I've enjoyed it, but I think I'm just about all done with Tumblr. I'm going to try to put up one post on this site per week, and I may even re-point emptyage.com at this blog again.

Close enough. I'm going to count this one as completed. It was an aspirational goal, and while I fell short, I did what I set out to, more or less. But as for being "all done with Tumblr"? Hogwash. 2009 was the year of Tumblr for me, and very many other people. I'd been using it since 2006, I believe, and after falling out of love with it in '08, I radically trimmed who I followed, and found it one of the most stimulating sites on the Internet. Interestingly, however, I've come to think of it as a group blog or bulletin board, rather than as "my tumblr." For me the Tumblr experience starts and ends with the Dashboard.

2. One Pitch Per WeekLately I've begun leaning on assignments too much. I used to have a goal to send a pitch out every single day. That was eight years ago, when I was just starting out as a freelancer. It was often the same pitch, rejected in one spot, and sent somewhere else, but I was pitching. Pitching not only helps keep the work rolling in, but it also forces you to stay current and focused on the things you are interested in. I can't send out a pitch a day anymore, but I can and should do at least one a week.

Not really. But I did do pretty well. I managed to send out an average of at least three per month. I also found, in 20009, a much, much, much higher percentages of my pitches were shot down. While in previous years, I'd guess 2/3 or so of my pitches were accepted, this year for the first time in a long, long time, the percentage fell below 50 percent. That sucked.

3. Book ProposalOne of the very many good things to come out of my book deal this year was that I scored an amazing agent at an amazing agency. I need to take advantage of that and get a book proposal into her this year.

Yeah. Nothing happened. Good experience, but I still don't want to talk about it.

Personal:1. AlcoholI drink too much. I'm going to cut back on it this year because I love beer and I love wine and I don't want to have to stop drinking either one.
This is kind of a touchy-feely goal, in that I don't have a concrete
number or achievement to check off a list. But I'll know it when I see
it.

Oof. A big nope. The biggest. Alcohol is my most profound and worrying problem. Right now, I think it's fair to say I have an alcohol habit that's fast approaching problem or even addiction status. I'm very rarely drunk, but I drink almost every day. Worse, I drink to unwind and self-medicate. It worries me. It worries other people. It worries my wife. I have to get my drinking under control in 2010 or I have to quit. And I damn sure don't want to quit. I love beer and wine and sake. I love the flavors and the smell and the colors and the process and the rituals and so many other things that have nothing to do with the alcohol or intoxicating effects. But it's the alcohol I have to worry about it. And I'm worried.

2. HarperAnother touchy-feely one. I have the
best relationship of anyone I know. There's a simple reason for that,
both Harper and I put the other person's interests ahead of our own.
She's the most important thing in my life, and I'm the most important
thing in hers. I want to make sure I don't take her for granted, and be a better husband and friend in 2009 than I was in 2008.

You'd have to ask Harper, but I think I pulled this one off. I hope. Which just makes me want to do even better in 2010. Relationships are like fitness; you always have to work to maintain them, and no matter how well you are doing, you can always do better. In that spirit, I'm not checking this one off.

3. Go CrazyLife should be an adventure. You
only get one shot at it, so you have to make the most of it. To me,
there's nothing better in life than having a wide variety of
experiences. It was why I did acid in high school and why I swim from
Alcatraz as an adult. I just want to live, live, live.
Harper has much the same life philosophy. We had hoped to go to
Tanzania in 2009, to climb Kilimanjaro. Yet barring another book deal,
that's likely going to be too expensive for us to save up for it in
time for this year. But somewhere out there is a stunning adventure
with our names on it. I don't know if that's in South America, or
Africa, or on the John Muir Trail. But wherever it is, I need to find
it.

I'd say hiking the John Muir Trail (on three or four weeks notice, no less) fit this bill. It was one of the greatest things I've ever done, and I'm not sure that I'll ever top it. It was remarkably challenging, both physically and mentally. It was beautiful, spiritual, and stimulating to my mind and body. I can only hope to find something equally as rewarding in 2010, although I doubt I will. That was truly one of those only-once-every-few-years experiences.

September 11, 2009

Eight
years ago I had flown to Alabama on September 10 to see my grandmother
one last time, who was dying of cancer. She was at my mother's house,
in my mother's bedroom, in a rented hospital bed. Early in the morning,
my grandmother's caretaker, Victorene, came over. She and my mother
first straightened my grandmother out in the bed. They pulled her
erect, and my grandmother, delirious, began screaming. Next they had to
get her unimpacted--they had to get her bowels moving. My mother told
me I should step out of the room. I walked to the front of the house.
The phone rang. I turned on the TV. And I watched the towers fall as my grandmother
screamed in pain.

September 10, 2009

UPDATE: Thanks every body! I can take it from here. Thanks for all the kind emails and donations!

I hate junk mail. Hate it. I get loads of it. Years and years ago, I noticed that I was getting junk mail via my domain registrations. And so like many other people, I began using a fake address to register domains. In my case, I used 123 Fake Street, San Francisco, CA 94117.

It had never been an issue, until last night. But when I woke up today, big problem.

You see, I made a new Website last night called "Joe Wilson is your Pre-Existing Condition." Like Barack Obama is your New Bicycle (one of my many domains that's in trouble) it was an overnight sensation. But apparently, somebody looked up the registration information for it, recognized 123 Fake Street as being a, well, fake street, and reported it to my registrar.

This morning there were 23 emails sitting in my inbox from my registrar, Joker.com. Suddenly, they're wise to my shenanigans. So now, unless I want my domains locked down, I have to pay $25 a pop to submit an owner change of address form, and in addition I have to send a fax to Switzerland for each. I'm likely not going to clean all of them up--some, like utopianflan.com, I don't use anyway and I'll just let die on the vine. But just changing the records for the ones I do keep (see below) is still going to be more than I can really afford right now.

Yeah. It was a very, very dumb thing to do.

So here's the deal: I'm starting a fundraiser. For me. Maybe you enjoyed the Joe Wilson site. Or my Barack Obama site. Or, I don't know, my Twitter feed. If so, and if you feel like it, I'd be exceptionally appreciative if you could send a buck or two to mhonan@gmail.com via PayPal. If you want to send me $25 to "sponsor" a domain of your choice (see the list below), I'll post your name on this page, plus send you a handwritten note of thanks.

May 01, 2008

I want to see a small run book or magazine, or a record, or a cassette tape and wonder where it was made, and by whom. I want something to come to me from far away. I want to be amused by simple things, because there is nothing else to do. I want to wonder how life is different in big cities, and whether the big city people would find it interesting here. I want to proudly show something off. I want a new restaurant to open up, and have the whole town be excited about it. And I want to be excited too.

I'm tired of being jaded and coy and on top of things. I'm tired of reading about it a month ago. I'm tired of having tried it already.

When I saw your picture, unabashedly having fun in a place that I cannot anymore--worse, that I could not permit myself to--it made me sad. It made me nostalgic for the person I used to be, who experienced the world through pictures in magazines and tenth-generation cassette tapes re-dubbed so many times that the hiss and pop seemed to map the miles between me and What's Going On.

But now I can't be bothered. Take me to the beating heart and I can't be bothered.

All The Sad Young Literary Men seems passé and cliché, I won't read it because I've already lived it--and besides who cares about people in their 20s. The band with the new, new sound just reminds me of The Fall.

And, oh, how I wish it were not that way. It's not that I want to be younger, I don't. Or happier, I could not be.

But how I long for innocence, and the smell of honeysuckle and decay in the air. For the whole world to lie out there somewhere beyond me, unknown and mysterious and full of surprises.

February 21, 2008

This morning I was interviewed by reporters from The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Boston Phoenix. Also, an interview I did a few days ago with MTV news came out today (with photo!) as a part of a story on Obama's appeal to the creative class. It's actually a really thought-provoking story, suggesting the creative class will be the Soccer Moms and Nascar Dads of '08

December 05, 2007

We have new neighbors downstairs. The apartment below us has been vacant since last October, as our landlord slowly renovated it. Since we live on the top floor, that means that for the past year, we've been able to be as loud and as weird as we want.

But now we have three people moving into the flat below us, and that means no more midnight floorstompings or impromptu hardwood bocce tourneys. Which is not to say that I think we need to be quiet. NFW. Rather, as I explained to the wife recently, we had an obligation to be exceptionally loud over the next few weeks. She needed to galumph across the kitchen floor, play the stereo at uncomfortable volumes whenever she was home, and chat, or holler, on the phone to other Southerners. ("Hey y'all!")

But I think it went a bit too far last night. I got up in the night, certain there was something important to do in the other room, and went to go do it. About this time, Harper awoke, and saw me, creeping through the doorway. Tip-toeing. Convinved that the pillow next to her was me, and the shadow in the doorway not me, she naturally screamed bloody fucking murder. Fire. Rape. Pillage. Ruin.

I tried to calm her, I said, "it's me!" which I think she heard as "I am here to find the gatekeeper." Or something similarly creepy, because she only screamed louder, and that thing that I had gotten up to do I all of the sudden had to do a lot more because, holy shit, at this point, I was terrified of me/not me, standing in the doorway.

And so it was over just like that, but, I'm still psyched about how well Harper is breaking in the new neighbors.

November 30, 2007

Years ago, I was in a band called Hamotam and I had an enormous beard like Sam Beam and a homemade mohawk. Our motto was never the same song twice, and we essentially would all take the stage with no set plan, and start jamming on various instruments none of knew how to play led by semi-maniacal front man, mr. matthew rampage. Real time improvisation. Non-musicians making music. It was all very puzzling, and ended badly in a cocaine and methamphetamine-fueled cycle of self-destruction that sent two of the founding members off packing, homeward bound to live with parents. Harper and I had skipped out long before that. We didn't like to snort things up our nose, and the madness was just too much. There was talk of touring Europe, for example, a preposterous notion. Of becoming famous, and playing at The Greek, even more ludicrous. The "music" wasn't even bad, it was utterly unlistenable. An assault on your ears and senses. Completely horrifying. It was the kind of premise only someone mired deep in a dark black hole of addiction could possibly entertain. At some point, the actors forgot they were engaging in a joke, in guerilla theater of sorts, and began to actually believe that it was a band. That what we were making was music. It was grotesque, and I felt betrayed by my friends. I began to hate them and their antics. Although I had left already, the madness still followed. There were angry phone calls. Threats. I owned hamotam.org, our domain, and when one of the principals discovered this, he threatened to sue me. He left obscene comments all over my blog. By this point it was just he and one other guy, and I couldn't be bothered anymore. Cocaine, it's a hell of a drug. Methamphetamine too.

Not long afterwards, we left for Asia. The fellas all went their separate ways, and each in his own time got his head straight. One remains one of my best friends whom I see all the time. Another is still a close, close friend, although we rarely talk. The third, well, things happen. Sometimes you say things you can't take back. When I came home again, after six months abroad, I was, quite honestly, glad they were gone. Glad it was over. Glad everyone, finally, seemed to have their shit together. And I didn't miss it. At all.

But now, I look back on that period. We were all blogging and writing and making music and art. Hanging out constantly in a tight-knight circle of friends. And, despite the drama and the madness, I miss it. I miss that creative rush. That buzz.

And every once in a while, I get hit right in the forehead with a reminder. A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends sent me this file. A relic from that era. It's our frontman, rampage, who after some voice talent failed to show, was pressed into the service of pitching Crazy Glow. I smiled when I saw it, and dropped it into iTunes, then promptly forgot about it.

And then yesterday morning, while I was working, it came on in the shufffle. And I thought of Hamotam, and Matthew and Jeff and Ezra and Harper and me. Onstage at the Hotel Utah. In front of a crowd at the Cafe International. Playing astride the Mckinley Statue in the panhandle. Playing in the sun in Golden Gate Park. At parties and on street corners.

It was madness, it was madness, it was madness. And, oh, how I miss it so.

November 20, 2007

Like all good San Franciscans, we spy on our neighbors. Well, spy may be a bit strong. But we are familiar with them. We have nicknames, even. The nicknames started when Harper hurt her back and was largely confined to bed for a year. The neighbors became like her TV show, there being no TV in the bedroom. She was living Rear Window. Complete with our own cast of characters: the couple, comic book store guy neighbor, the girl who is always at home, the big oaf, and, our favorite, the boy. The boy started off as a normal college-age boy. He played guitar. He drank beer with friends, and grilled on his porch. One night, he almost got into a fight with The Big Oaf outside on the sidewalk. (I broke this up, by yelling out the window. "Shut up!" I didn't really care about he noise at all, truth be told. I did it to forestall a fight, re-directing their mutual aggression at me, rather than each other. The Boy would have gotten his ass kicked, and that would have made me sad.)

But then, at some point, The Boy quit being a boy, and started being a user. I'm not quite sure when that was, but it was certainly when Harper's back was still hurt to the point she was largely confined to bed, so at least a year and a half. He quit going out. He quit having friends over, and more and more of the time, he just sat motionless in front of his computer, for hours on end. Not typing. Just staring straight ahead, holding a mouse in one hand. I took the picture below on the left in March. The one on the right was taken last night.

He sits like that for hours on end. Typically, he's there from the afternoon at some point until the early morning hours. I wake up pretty early, it's often still dark out when I get going for the day. And repeatedly, time after time, I've woken up and seen The Boy sitting there. Obviously after a long night of staring straight ahead.

Sometimes, I like to think that he's not just wasting his life. That he's working on some super-important project. Some sort of code that's going to change everything. That will make us all honest and enlightened and happy and free. A comprehensive system, a unified theory.

But that, I suspect, would require typing.

The Boy makes me sad, and maybe he shouldn't. But there have been times when I've wanted to intervene. To throw rocks across the street at his window and say, "Hey, you, Boy! Look around you! You live in a great neighborhood, in a great city, in a great region, in a great state! No matter what you are into, you can find it here! There is all kinds of life happening, just over your shoulders."

And then I think it's none of my business, and I just go on about my day or evening or night. And I tell Harper, "The Boy is at his computer again." And she replies "All is right with the world."

November 12, 2007

Last month, I spent some time visiting my mother in New Hampshire. While there, I had some time to sit and go through old photos. This was a lot of fun. It made me nostalgic, it made me laugh and it made me sad. But mostly, it made me ask what the hell was going on in the 80s.

Now, okay, granted. The 70s. Sure. But at least I just had normal little boy haircuts the entire time. Around the time we got to the 80s, however, I was just getting to the age where I took control over my own hairstyle, and fashion sense.

I entered the decade with the classic down-the-middle, butt-cut. This was accompanied by a Member's Only jacket, not so bad. I mean, the haircut is bad, but the clothes are okay. T shits and jeans. Normal jeans. But shortly thereafter, apparently, I started watching MTV. I got into hip-hop and punk, or thought I did. It was actually new wave, of course. But what did I know, I was eleven. It was 1983. I lived in Alabama. None of the shirts have sleeves. Most seem to have some sort of Japanese writing on them. And before long, up went the hair.

By 5th grade I was sporting a spike. Sometimes in conjunction with a rat tail. Scratch that. Often in conjunction with a rat tail. God help me, what was I doing in a Michael Jackson jacket? I favored camouflage pants, Army surplus. I was break dancing. Break dancing? What the fuck. I can't believe people ever thought hip hop was just going to be a fad. Little white kids in suburban Alabama were break dancing in 1984. That's huge. I really dug Van Halen, L.L., Run DMC, Prince, The Cars, and 101 other bands that I can't be bothered to remember now. And, of course, Michael Jackson. I thought Madonna was hot. I did like The Clash, but I never would have heard of them had they not been on MTV. David Lee Roth was a god to me.

In the sixth grade, a friend of mine really got into skating. I tried to also, but I only had a J.C. Penny board, and was quite frankly too chicken-shit to try anything cool. This moderately improved what I was listening to, but took a dramatic toll on my appearance. Everything became Brighter and More Torn. Do you remember what Gator looked like? That was terrible. But me. I looked like his redneck cousin who shopped at Gayfers. But not as classy. I wore a painters hat, and lots of things with checkerboards. I bleached my hair.

And then, in middle school, there was R.E.M. Unlike all the other bands I knew of, these guys weren't in California, or New York, or London, or even Minneapolis. They were in Georgia. Southerners. Like Me! Puffy shirts! A vest! Unfortunate hats! Bangs Bangs and more Bangs!

This was thankfully short-lived. Sometime around eighth grade, I figured out that no girls at my fascist-preppy junior high were going to talk to me as long as I was sporting the J.C. Penny version of the Michael Stipe. Besides, I was tired of all the guys calling me a fag.

In with the 80s preppy! Bring out your pink! Bring out your purple! Bring out your whitest whites and stonewashed jeans! Feather that hair! Turn up that collar! Peg those jeans! Hand me the J.Crew catalogue and bring me a rugby shirt. My jeans grew splotchier and whiter. I had issues with bleach. Polka dots, yo. Polka dots.

And then I started smoking pot, which must have explained the hair: A curly poof, all one length. It looked like someone had draped a poodle over my head. By now I was listening to respectable music, a lot of it is stuff I still listen to today. But I was far from finished with my unfortunate fashions. You know how today, all the teens and early 20-somethings dress like the 80s? Well, in the 80s, they all dressed like the 60s. Or at least a lot of them did. (Hint to fashionistas: if you really want to dress like 1988, you should buy some hippie crap.) Tie-dyes. Paisley shirts. Oh, help. It was just awful. And yet: perhaps the best look I had all decade, which should tell you something about how utterly loathesome 80s fashion was.

By 1990 I had seamlessly transitioned to torn jeans, ragged t-shirts with obnoxious slogans, and flannel shirts. This was before "grunge" was invented as a marketing term, by about a year or so. Yet people were already kicking that look anyway. Especially dirtbag not hippie not punk not preppy not skater not metalhead not really much of anything other than disaffected college-bound kids like me. It was a welcome relief from all that neon and, um, neon. Which is why today, when I see the kids with their Vuarnet Cateye-style sunglasses, painters caps, and checkerboard everything I grimace, and think of them as victims. And then, flipping through Radar, you see the Art Bears, and realize, oh! Grunge! It's back, slightly re-packaged. And then you cry, and order another wine from the stewardess.

On PayPerPost
I've gotten some private feedback on my PayPerPost blogging, and I want to address that. While I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep it up, I am going to give it a shot for a while and see how it works out. Yes, they are sponsored posts, which means that they are written for a fee. However, I'm trying to only write about topics that I find interesting, and at the very least I hope to make them just as entertaining and/or informative as anything else you might read here.

On Why My Nike Plus Isn't Updating
No, I have not quit running. I logged five miles this morning, in fact. But I haven't been running with my Nike Plus sports kit lately because, well, I just haven't felt like it. In September, I was testing several HRMs that tracked speed and distance, and filling out spreadsheets and logbooks every day. Prior to that, it was my triathlon season, and I spent seven months training and tracking my progress. It's been nice to just go out and run, for a change, purely for the enjoyment of it. I'll likely start updating again this month. Next year, I plan on doing Wildflower Olympic distance, Alcatraz, Vineman 70.3, and Sandman, plus maybe another sprint or two. There will be plenty more to come.

October 30, 2007

Morrissey was, inexplicably, correct: If there's something you'd like to try, ask me I won't say no how could I?

Okay, well, he was partially correct. I won't give you anything; nothing at all. Don't bother asking me. But, in a larger context he makes a good point: you can get just about anything you want if you're willing to ask. You certainly will never get anything that isn't offered to you without asking.

When I was younger I was very shy. Painfully shy, and utterly without self-confidence. It bled into everything I did, and it wasn't until I moved to California, met the beautiful Harper, and began having to ask questions for a living that I really re-made my self image. Prior to that I always took what was given me. In other words, I always took crap, especially as a consumer/customer.

But emboldened by both the personal confidence that came with adulthood and occupational practice, I have become an asker. I will ask for an upgrade. I will ask for a discount. I will ask for a new table, in a better location, away from the door. I will ask for clean sheets, and more towels. I will ask you to actually look instead of assuming. I will ask for a better deal, another turn, a new one that hasn't been used before. If you inform me you will not, I will then ask you to do it anyway, and I will ask the same thing of your boss upon your refusal. I will ask for just about everything other than your opinion, because I am always right. At least as long as I am a customer, that is.

And what I have found is that if you ask you shall receive. And in fact, if you go from meek consumer who doesn't want to rock the boat, to the one who's demanding-yet-polite, all sorts of perks await you.

Case in point, and the reason I was inspired to write this: Last year I bought two plane tickets to Belize for Harper and myself as a Christmas present to both of us. Then, because I am an utter jackanapes, I bailed on the trip. I had to train. I needed to work. Life was busy. Let's do it later, okay?

And so, with a few calls to American Airlines, the trip was postponed indefinitely. Instead of a trip in April, we had a voucher that needed to be used within a year. And that's where the confusion set in. Yesterday, when I tried to re-book the tickets for a January vacation, the customer service rep told me I was, essentially, toast. Actually, what she said was that I needed to use the tickets between now and December 18--the date of my original purchase. My understanding--or my misunderstanding--was that I needed to use them by April (the original date of our trip).

Like everyone else in their 30s, I'm busy. Really, really busy. I have to make plans weeks in advance. Everyone does. Harper is equally busy. Travel between now and December 18? Impossible. I was out $1300. Until I asked.

I called back, asked to speak with a supervisor. They didn't want me to, but I wouldn't take no for an answer, and kept asking to speak with a supervisor. It took me nearly half an hour of phone hell before I was able to actually speak with somebody who could help me. "Look," I pled, "here's the date that I'm planning on flying out. It's just a few weeks past the cutoff. Isn't there some way you can help me out? I can pay extra, even." (And that's a key to asking for anything in a negotiation, always offer to meet somewhere between where you are and where you want to be.)

American couldn't have been nicer. The supervisor I spoke with was impossibly helpful. "Of course we can." And she did. And so instead of being out $1300, we're planning a vacation to Nicaragua in January.

October 19, 2007

I set a new 10K personal best today, clocking a 7:36 pace. That sounds fast to me, and I'm thrilled with it.

But then I remember High School, when a seven-minute mile was de rigour, not something to brag about. Though I've come a long way from my days as a smoker, it pains me to realize that I'll never have that athletic ability I had when I was a kid back again. Worse, however, is that I spent my best athletic years as a smoker, and an oft-intoxicated one at that.

I'm halfway through my 30s now, and for the past five years -- while I've certainly fallen off the wagon and picked up the cancer sticks -- I've largely been in god shape, biking and hiking, swimming and running. After deciding to get into triathlons this year, I've gotten into the best shape I've been in since I was a sophomore in high school, when I took up smoking.

But I think back to when I was 15, when I made the varsity track and cross country teams. When I placed in the state. When I could run faster and father than I can now. And I can't help but wonder how good I would have been at 18, or at 22, or 25.

I lost those years, and I regret it.

And so I hit a personal best today. But not really. In all reality, I'll never know my personal best. Rather: I'll never know my potential best. I'll always be left wondering what I could have done had I not dedicated the 1990s to Philip Morris and Samuel Adams. Had I, instead, dedicated them to me.

September 15, 2007

This picture, captioned "Expectations were high as people staked out space in line to be among the earliest purchasers of Apple's then-new iPhone" shows most prominently Terrence Russell on the right, who was covering this for Wired News, and me on the left. I was covering it for Macworld. Note my Fake SteVe T-shirt

April 26, 2007

It's interesting how different the culture is in different parts of the country.

I used to have a Grateful Dead sticker in the back window of my truck. I put it there my senior year in high school in Alabama, and immediately began getting pulled over. I suspected the sticker, but didn't know for sure.

But then one day one of my parents (I forget which one) was driving my car, and got pulled over. The cop, realizing it was a kid's car, more or less told my mom or dad that he had pulled him/her over because of the Dead sticker.

..........

One thing I miss about Alabama, and to a lesser extent a lot of the South, was the way that different people from different cliques would hang out together. My friends saw nothing wrong with listening to The Grateful Dead and the Dead Kennedys. Goths, deadheads, punks, skaters, and any other kind of outsider, all ran together, largely because we were all different and all aware of it. And there just weren't enough weirdos for us to divide ourselves up into camps.

In Atlanta, things were different. By and large, the deadheads didn't talk to the punks, who didn't talk to the skins who didn't talk to the goths who didn't talk to the ravers who didn't talk to the mods and on and on and so it goes. I think, to a real extent, growing up like that made me more accepting of different styles of music, and more broadly, different lifestyles. It was Us against Them: they told us so. I was just a kid with shaggy hair who didn't play football and didn't like the music on the radio. I never really thought of myself as opting out; I felt like I was forced out.

..........

I have digressed. But my point being: the act of putting a Grateful Dead sticker on my car--there were also Jane's, REM, Pixies, and other circa 1990 mainstay band stickers on there--made me an outsider, and suspect. It was oficially discouraged. Different is bad, you dumb fuck, and don't you forget it.

And so the other day, when we walked over to check out a housefire in our neighborhood, I noticed for the first time that all the firetrucks from our station have a certain familiar logo on them. These are city vehicles.

I wasn't born here in San Francisco. I miss my family; they are so very far away. I seldom listen to the Grateful Dead anymore (not out of animosity, I would if they recorded something new and it was good. I just get tired of listening to the same stuff over and over). But this made me really happy. When I see things like this, here in the city that I love, I feel like I'm at home. Finally, at home.

April 05, 2007

UnoThis morning I woke up before dawn, dressed quietly, and drove off into the cold dark city, blue and green lights shining from my dash. NPR. At the terminus of Van Ness, where you can go no further without driving into the deep green drink, I parked and shuffled down to the concrete bleachers in flip flops, my toes cold as joggers and cyclists passed me by going the other way. It's getting light now, but the city is still asleep, and shrouded. There I met Nate, Maria, Dave and Melanie, they are already dressed and have their blood up to get it on. I told them to go on ahead; I'd catch up. I take off my shirt and warmup pants, and shiver in the fog as I pull on my wetsuit. A runner stops and asks me the water temperature. I tell him I don't know, but that two weeks ago it was 53 degrees. He asks me if I'm training for a triathlon, and I point to The Rock off in the distance, floating in the Bay. Then I ran down the beach and plunged in. No fucking around this time, I tell myself. I threw myself under the water and swam holding my breath for as long as I could stand it, trying to use brute force to acclimate to the temperature.

Mind over body.

Fuck it's still cold. But I'm prepared for it this time, and I plugged away. No allowances for gasping. No floating on my back. When I try to look around I feel slightly dizzy from the motion and temperature of the water. At the end of the first length I stop and rest, adrift in the current. I breathe through a cramp and swim again. On my third length, I hear a shout ahead of me and pop up to peep. There's a seal just in front of me, facing Dave, just feet from his face. No. No. It's not a seal. My goggles are foggy, and I'm slightly disoriented. But I realize it's a dog, a yellow Labrador. Everything shifts into surrealism for a moment, as I try to understand. It's cold. My brain is cold. And I realize the dog is swimming with his master; one of several people out swimming in nothing but trunks. I'm impressed, and I start swimming again.

A half hour later I swim up on the beach. Nobody else is here yet, I needed to leave a little early to pick up Harper who has worked the overnight shift. I peel off my wetsuit, and strip down naked under my towel. I stand for a moment and look out over the Bay, enjoying the sensation of being cold and feeling the air across my skin. I pull on my pants and sweatshirt, and take a deep breath.

My body feels so good, so alive. Have I ever been this alive? Yes. But I am reminded of life all over again. Fresh. Anew. It is Springtime, and I am strong and alive.

DosI am 34 years old. I will be 35 this year. I have already taken half of my threescore and ten. To what end? To what meaning? What have I done?

When I was younger, there was so much I wanted to accomplish. I was going to write and publish a book by 30. I was going to be a famous-in-certain-circles author. (But not widely! I was to be Bukowski, not Grisham.) I wanted to be lazy and to get wasted and lay around the house watching TV. I wanted money. Money, money, money. I wanted so many things that seem very trivial to me now.

Instead, today, I want to be a good husband and citizen. I want my life to be an adventure, to be exciting. I want to love my work, and to feel fulfilled by it. I want to be healthy and strong, mentally and physically.

I don't want to live my life in front of a television, nor do I care to be on television. I simply want to live as long as I can, as healthy as I can, in the great company of my wife and best friend.

TresWhen I was about six years old, in our new house, in a new city, a new state, a new nation, I was playing in the backyard when I met the neighborhood. They yelled over the fence at me, hello, hello, and then came climbing-swarming over. Boys, four or five of them, American boys. I had never been friends with any American boys up until that point, only girls, as that's all there were in our apartment building in Tehran. There was some sort of antagonistic air about them that I felt. Or maybe I just thought I did. I don't remember how things started, but at some point I decided to show off my plastic Spiderman handcuffs.

I put one boy's wrists in the cuffs, and locked his arms around the pole that held up the awning. I told him to try to get out. With a quick yank, he was free, the broken plastic cuffs dangling from a single wrist. Everyone laughed, and I told my father, who was working in the back yard. I think I was crying. He told me, more or less, that I had told the other boy to try and get out, and that's what he had done, and that I needed to work it out for myself. This was good advice, though at the time it only made me angry. If I had taken it to heart, I would have had a much easier go of it for years to come in Alabama. But I did not. Instead, I was a sissy. I wanted my parents.

The other kids laughed at me. When my back was turned, one of them hit me with a tennis ball. I spun around, really pissed now, and they laughed more. One of them, the boy, Benji, who lived in the neighboring home, called me a helicopter and they all went swarming back over the fence, mocking me, while I wailed at the sight of my broken plastic handcuffs. Benji was a year older than me, and for the remainder of my childhood he would be my nemesis, though I doubt that he ever saw it that way, or gave me much thought. Years later, when I was 15, we would become friends while working together in a warehouse over the summer.

He liked Hank Williams Jr., and I listened to The Sex Pistols. We never talked about the handcuffs.

February 01, 2007

But there, tucked away in my haute green birthday manbag, down by my feet, I keep an iPod, nano, and shuffle. I need all of them, truly. First, both Harper and I may want to listen to music on the flight (iPod, nano). Second, we both may want to use one while exercising upon our arrival (nano, shuffle). Third, I mean, it is my beat. And finally, I am a prick.

I like listening to music in mass transit situations, as it allows me to not speak to people and mask my indifferent contempt with plausible obliviousness. Thus, I came back from the airport yesterday with a manbag full of iPods.

This afternoon, when I headed to South Park, I glanced in my bag and saw two of them -- the full size iPod and the nano--stowed in their neat little pockets. Harper had the shuffle at the gym. I was happy. And late; I hopped in a cab so as not to be tardy to a 3 PM meeting.

After it ended, I walked down third street, on my way to the N Judah. I was getting on at one of the first stops on the line (the second, actually) and I knew I'd score a seat. I had new copies of Newsweek and Wired tucked in the outside pocket of my manbag. I was looking forward to listening to Islands on my way home. It was going to be a great commute.

And as I pulled my iPod out of the bag, I saw that the safety was off -- the hold switch undone. Shit! Before I even hit the play button, I knew it wouldn't power up. And it didn't. It had played, instead, all day on the airplane, tucked in my bag.

So I reached in my bag with a little smirk, thinking, well at least I have a backup. And also thinking, I'm a total prick. And when I pulled out the little black iPod nano that I bought from Apple one night when I was drunk, I found nothing more than an empty case. I then remembered I had taken it out to go running with this morning, and left it sitting on the dock. I was devastated.